Milk, ‘Race’ and Nation: Medical Advice on Breastfeeding in Colonial Bengal

Abstract

This article analyses medical opinion about nursing of infants by memsahibs and dais as well as the Bengali-Hindu bhadramahila as the ‘immature’ child-mother and the ‘mature’, ‘goddess-like’ mother in the tropical environment of nineteenth and early twentieth century Bengal. It shows how the nature of lactation, breast milk and breastfeeding are socially constructed and become central to medical advice on motherhood and childcare aimed at regenerating community, ‘racial’ and/or national health, including manly vigour for imperial, colonial and nationalist purposes. In colonial Bengal, the topic of breastfeeding surfaces as crucial to understanding colonial and nationalist, medical and medico-legal representations of maternal and child health constituted by gendered, racialised, classed and caste-ridden, biological/cultural and pure/polluting traits, often considered transferable through milk and blood.